


don't worry about anything (trust it all to me)

by remi_mae



Series: Anthea Lin-Wayne [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Family, Foster Parent Bruce Wayne, Gen, How Do I Tag, what are tenses?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 00:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20957555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remi_mae/pseuds/remi_mae
Summary: Anthea Lin has lived in Gotham City for as long as she can remember and if there's even a little chance that her father being murdered means she has to leave, she's going to find out what happened to him before she does.Needless to say, it doesn't go the way she's expecting it to.





	don't worry about anything (trust it all to me)

**Author's Note:**

> I genuinely don't know where this idea came from, but I dunno, I had the idea for a Batfamily OC and it resulted in me writing an entire fic? This is definitely being a series because I have a whole bunch of ideas of things to write with Anthea and this was just sort of... feeling it out and also it's effectively backstory. Upcoming fics will be about Anthea getting to know her new family one by one, and there's definitely at least being a short fic about her putting two and two together and figuring out her new foster father is Batman (which means her new siblings are the other vigilantes.)
> 
> Title from Day6's Time of Our Life. I also made a [collection](https://weheartit.com/remimi96/collections/166408794-oc-anthea-lin-wayne) on WHI for Anthea if you want some general aesthetic stuff for her.

Anthea has lived in Gotham for as long as she can remember. She knows she was born in China, knows her father moved them to Gotham City after her mother died and he was offered a job there. She knows her father's family back in China thinks it was the stupidest decision her father ever made, because "that city is Hell on Earth and is no place for a little girl to grow up."

Gotham may be a lot but it's still her home, and she doesn't want to leave it. She _won't_ leave it. She's been telling her dad that since she was old enough to realize why her family in China didn't want them there. Gotham is her home, messed up as it might be, and wrenching her away from it wouldn't help her in the long run, especially right now.

Because right now, she's mourning her father, and trying to find his killer, something she can't do if she's halfway around the world. Gotham's foster care system might be terrible, but she'd rather stay in Gotham, thank you very much. Her father was murdered and GCPD haven't found anything yet. She may have been moved into the school dorms and she's not some vigilante, but she can't just sit around knowing that whoever had killed her father was just running free. The nightmares were bad enough, but if she could at least figure out what the police had found, maybe... maybe she could do _something_.

(When she decided she had to do something, she never would have imagined it going the way that it did.)

A week after her father's murder - a week after she came home from school to find her father bleeding out on the floor of their kitchen - the police had nothing to tell her. She had pleaded to be kept up to date, as much as they could keep her up to date, because he was the only family she had and she had to know what had happened to him. Commissioner Gordon had told her they'd do everything they could to find who had killed him and he would tell her when they found anything concrete, but so far... nothing. It wasn't that she expected it to be easy or fast, but they had _nothing_ last she had asked. They wouldn't tell her anything - and she logically understood that they couldn't. It was an ongoing investigation and she was only sixteen. But it hurt, not knowing what they'd found so far.

There was also the fact that when she went to the police station to ask if they'd found anything (the anxiety of not knowing what had happened overriding the anxiety of going to the police and asking to speak to someone) she'd overheard a couple of cops saying they hadn't found anything and that they probably wouldn't.

So, she decided to take it into her own hands. Maybe it was stupid, but it wasn't like she was really thinking straight.

That was why Anthea Lin could be found sitting in the back of the library late on a Friday night, typing away on her laptop, barely paying attention to the rest of the room. It was primarily empty anyway, but the library stayed open until really late and usually the only people in this late on a Friday night were people who didn't have anywhere else to go. (It wasn't much, but at least the library was warm.)

She knew she was going to get into trouble when she got back to her dorm, for staying out so late, though she could... probably just sneak in. Even if she got caught, she could just claim losing track of time. It wasn't... it wasn't a lie? She had gone to the library almost immediately after school, having stopped to grab her laptop and she'd hardly glanced at the clock since she arrived. She knew she should have gone back to her dorm, or at least paused to go get something to eat, but she was working on something and wanted to get as much done as possible without being interrupted.

She had always been interested in computers - her fathers doing, really. He worked in the IT department at Wayne Enterprises. It kept him busy a lot but it paid for their apartment and all the bills without any real trouble. It had gotten her a scholarship for Gotham Academy as well - she was a smart kid, and her father wanted the best for her, and that meant a better school than the public one she had been going to. It meant leaving most of her friends behind, but well... she'd never had that many friends to begin with. Her room mate was okay, but she didn't really talk to the other girl much - she was named Abbey, was nice enough, but spent most of her time talking on her cell phone, loudly, so Anthea rarely spent time in her dorm until it was curfew. She was sure if she'd moved into the dorms at the beginning of the year she'd be closer to Abbey, but as it was they had only known each other for a week, because they didn't share any classes.

And right now... aside from just not wanting to listen to her room mate talking, she didn't want to chance Abbey asking what she was doing - because she was trying to hack into the GCPD database to find out what they had found on her fathers case.

She didn't know what would happen if she got caught - if she'd get off with a warning, be kicked out of school, or what - but that just meant she needed to not get caught. She'd grown up around computers, learning how to get past passwords and break into computers, though usually with the intent of fixing something that had gone wrong. She didn't think her father would be all too pleased to learn what she was doing at the moment, but if he was around to find out she wouldn't be doing it to begin with.

Anthea stayed in the library until the librarian came by and told her she had to leave. She _had_ gotten into the GCPD files, but... there was almost nothing, and so she left feeling worse than she had when she started. All she wanted was to find out what happened to her father, to find out who had killed her baba and know that whoever it was, they'd be behind bars and unable to hurt anyone else.

She was half way back to her dorm when she realized she was being followed.

Most people who grew up in Gotham were paranoid to an extent, especially if they were outside late at night and alone, which is _exactly_ what Anthea was doing. The fact that it took her so long to notice was testament to how little she was paying attention (or spoke to the fact that person following her was actually being sneaky, which wasn't like most petty crooks in Gotham.)

She sped up a little, gripping the straps of her backpack a little tighter and wishing she'd left the library before it had gotten dark. Abbey might have been a distraction, but Anthea could have put headphones in and blasted music to not hear her. If she looked busy, surely her room mate would have left her alone unless she actually needed something. But _no_, she had to be stupid and go hide in the library until it was way too late for anyone, let along a teenage girl, to be outside alone.

Then she rounded a corner and nearly ran into a large figure. She flinched, looking up and hoping it wasn't some lackey for one of the rogues - she just wanted to get back to her dorm, and she wasn't sure she could outrun someone - and then she froze, but not so much out of fear, but out of confusion.

Why was _Batman_ standing in front of her?

"Anthea Lin," Oh god, Batman _knew her name_!?

"Y-yes?" She wanted to wince at how squeaky her voice came out, but... _Batman_. He'd probably be a little less scary if she hadn't spent most of the afternoon trying to hack into the police database.

Batman nudged her towards a car - the Batmobile!? - and if it was anyone else, she would've turned and ran away as fast as she could. This was Batman though - he wouldn't hurt her unless she'd done something wrong.

Except, she... kind of had done something wrong. She hadn't _hurt_ anyone though, so... oh she was going to get scolded by Batman, wasn't she?

When she was sitting in the car and Batman had sat in the driver seat, Anthea found herself _this_ close to sitting on her hands just so she'd stop fidgeting with them.

"Care to explain why you were hacking into the GCPD database?" Ah, right down to business. Normally she appreciated when people did that - gave her less time to overthink - but now she just wanted to go crawl into a hole.

"I wanted to know if they'd learned anything about my dad." She admitted after a moment, voice quiet. "They said they'd tell me, but I didn't think they actually would." There was a quiet grunt, and then the car started moving, causing Anthea to look up in surprise.

"I'm going to drop you off at your dorm." She figured she probably should have been weirded out by the fact that Batman knew her name and the fact that she lived in a dorm now, but then again... he was _Batman_. He was like, the worlds greatest detective or something. It had probably been easy for him to catch her and figure out who she was. She'd covered her tracks and kept herself hidden enough that the police probably wouldn't even notice she'd gotten into their system, especially as she was just looking and wasn't changing anything, but she hadn't thought about Batman finding her.

Anthea nodded, and looked down at her lap, not saying anything more. It was quiet for a minute, until there was a sigh, and then "you're not in trouble."

She wasn't?

"No. Well, a little." Oh, she'd said that out loud. Great. "Your father was Harrison Lin?" She nodded, swallowing around the lump in her throat that threatened to rise. "I'll find out what happened to him. But leave it to the professionals, okay? The next time it might not be Oracle or I who catch you poking around where you shouldn't be."

Ah. She _was_ being scolded by Batman. (And wow, he really did sound like a dad. Maybe there was some truth to the "younger vigilantes are Batman's kids" rumour that always flew around.)

"Okay." She nodded again, not really looking up. Batman seemed content with the answer though, and didn't say anything aside from a quiet grunt and she wasn't even sure was aimed at her.

He dropped her off near the dorms, after telling her, again, not to go hacking into police databases. She swore she saw him smile, but it might have been her imagination - and the fact was that it was nearly 2am and she was _tired_. She somehow didn't get caught on the way back to her dorm, but she figured she might have to explain it to Abbey in the morning - maybe. After changing into her pyjamas and getting ready for bed as quickly and quietly as she could, Anthea flopped into her bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking over the events of the day.

She learned nothing about what had happened to her father, and had been scolded by _Batman_.

He'd also told her that he would find out what happened to him. She... she wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him but Batman (and the other vigilantes) had bigger things to worry about, right? Unless her fathers murder played into something bigger, why would they waste their time trying to solve it when they could leave it for the police?

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and rolled over. Whatever. She'd give him a chance and if nothing happened, she'd do it herself, even if it did get her into trouble.

"Oracle?" Bruce watched the girl (she was just Tim's age) walk towards her dorm. She was already quite a tiny thing, made all the smaller looking by the way she seemed to curl in on herself.

Anthea Lin. 16 years old. Born in Beijing, China but had grown up right here in Gotham, where she and her father, Harrison Lin, had relocated after her mother, Zhang Jia, had died when Anthea was just a baby. A week ago Harrison Lin had been murdered. His daughter was the one to call the police - she'd come home from school to find him bleeding out on the floor of their apartment, the door having been forced open. With no other family in the country, Anthea, who attended Gotham Academy, had been moved into a dorm until a foster family could be found for her - because placing her in a dorm and keeping her in school and around any friends she had seemed like the best thing for her.

"Batman." Barbara replied. "You find her?"

"I did. She was trying to see if there were any updates in her fathers case." They had suspected it, but having it confirmed was for the best. Plus this entire thing had mostly been to just try and scare a teenager into not hacking into police databases. Unless she _had_ been planning something, she was never going to be in any trouble, not really.

Barbara hummed quietly, and Bruce could hear her typing away in the background. "So you're going to try and find who killed her dad?"

"Was it not obvious?" Barbara let out a little laugh, before sobering.

"Don't get too attached." She told him, and he was sure she was joking to an extent but not entirely.

It seemed to be a running joke that he could only go so long without adopting another child, and he didn't want to take it seriously (because it was silly, honestly) but he understood her words. He had seen himself in all of his kids, one way or another, and wanted to help them. He could have easily sent one of the boys to warn Anthea Lin away from hacking into police database, or just had Oracle shut her down when she was caught - given the way she'd reacted, a pop up telling her to stop likely would've been enough.

But instead he'd tracked her down, told her he would find her fathers killer, and driven her back to her dorm even though it was out of the way.

He didn't make any promises, rather just making a dismissive noise and moving on, because he still had the rest of his patrol to get through. (He could practically hear Barbara rolling her eyes at him, but she didn't say anything about it and let him pretend like he wasn't already trying to find a way to make sure he found a good foster home for Anthea Lin, a place where she'd be happy and with people who would care about her.)

It was another week before Anthea heard anything. She wouldn't say it was the longest week of her life, but... it was definitely long.

Abbey _had_ questioned her in the morning, asking where she'd been so late, but seemed disappointed that it was just Anthea hiding out in the library. She seemed to think that the best way for her to deal with her grief and mourning her father was to go out and distract herself - and maybe that would work for her room mate, but it wouldn't work for her. She tried distracting herself with homework that she needed to do - and she did get most of it done by the end of the weekend - but her mind kept going back to her father, and to Batman.

Every time she thought about trying to check if they'd found anything new, if they'd had any breakthroughs in her father's case, she went back to thinking about Batman telling her that he'd find out what happened.

Maybe she was thinking about it too much, or reading into it, but the wording had made it seem like he'd do it himself. She didn't know how the Gotham vigilantes worked, whether they assigned things to each other or just took what they'd found, but Batman of all people had to have better things to do than investigate the murder of an IT consultant. Her father had been good at his job, she knew that, but he hadn't been a boss or anything. If he had, she could kind of understand it - from what she knew, Wayne Enterprises funded the vigilantes, or something like that. It would make sense _then_ that Batman would want to find out who murdered her father, but as it stood? She didn't get it.

Batman was a hero, fought for justice and all that, but... they lived in _Gotham_. There was so much crime happening all the time that some things had to get the short end of the stick, and well, Anthea assumed that's how it was going to be with her father. It was like how she wanted to believe that Batman would be able to find who killed her father, but wasn't quite sure if he would.

He was a great detective but no one was perfect.

But then, the next Saturday, Anthea found herself leaving the library late again - though she really was studying this time. Abbey had been on the phone with her boyfriend or something and even with headphones in, she couldn't focus so she took off to the library. She didn't stay nearly as late this time, leaving around 10pm rather than nearing 2am, but it was still late and it was still Gotham. She tried to get back to the dorms as quickly as she could, while at the same time trying to avoid the short cuts she usually took. They were fine to take in the afternoon sun but not in the dark of night.

She was just passing an ally way (maybe walking a little faster than strictly necessary) when she heard her name. She jumped, nearly tripping over her feet in surprise.

Anthea turned to see who had called her name, prepared to bolt if it was someone she didn't know, and was left gasping quietly in surprise.

"Batman?" He seemed almost a little sheepish that he'd surprised her, but it was... really hard to tell, what with the cowl. She was a little confused that she hadn't recognized the gruff voice immediately.

He stepped out of the shadows a little more, so she could see him better. She felt safe enough to step closer to him, even if her hands were still holding the straps of her bag very tightly.

"The commissioner should give you a call in the morning," he told her, unprompted. Anthea tilted her head to the side in confusion. "We found your fathers killer. GCPD should be arresting him right about now."

Anthea moved before she even realized it, because the next thing she knew she was hugging the vigilante and repeating "thank you," over and over again.

It might not bring her father back, but knowing that whoever had hurt him was going to face punishment, it was enough. It would let her sleep at night, if nothing else.

Batman didn't seem all too surprised by her actions - her rubbed a hand on her shoulder while she tried her best to not cry, and rather failed. Even though she was sure he had better things to do - crimes to stop, people to save - he didn't rush her. He just let her hug him and cry. When she was done, he pulled a couple of tissues out of one of the pockets on his belt so she could wipe her eyes.

"Thank you," she said again, after taking a deep breath to calm her self down. "I didn't... I didn't know if they'd be able to find anything at all. I didn't think I'd get any closure. So thank you." He didn't say anything, rather he just grunted quietly and gave her shoulder a squeeze (she was beginning to think Batman wasn't very good with feelings.) He then offered to drive her back to her dorm (again) and although it wasn't that far away, Anthea accepted - she wasn't entirely sure her legs would let her get all the way back to her dorm before giving out.

Commissioner Gordon did call in the morning, told her what he could - that it was a former co-worker who felt that Anthea's father had taken his promotion and snapped after being fired for misconduct - and she thanked him for finding out, thanked him for giving her the closure, as she had done with Batman the night before. When she hung up, Abbey giving her a confused look, she broke into tears again. (And for all that Anthea didn't really know her room mate, the other girl spent the entire day trying to help in whatever way she could.) 

Two days later Anthea was called down to the principle's office right before the end of the school day because her social worker was there to speak to her.

Her social worker who told her they'd found a foster home for her, that they could head over now so she could move in. Apparently they'd be able to drive her back and forth to school every day no problem, so she had no reason to stay in a dorm any longer, which was... fine with her. She'd been given the option when she started at the school, and her scholarship covered it if she wanted to live in the dorms, but they'd lived close enough that commuting every day was fine. Abbey was nice enough, but Anthea preferred having a little more space, something the social worker assured her she'd have at the foster home.

In fact, the social worker was being very... vague. She wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want Anthea to make any assumptions until she met the foster family for herself or not, but it was a little weird (and making her more than a little anxious.)

She went to meet the foster family with no complaints though, with almost all of her worldly possessions packed into her social workers car.

She expected the foster family to live near by the school, maybe a little further away than she had before, but they kept driving through the city and towards the outskirts of Gotham. Who even lived out here? Wouldn't it be easier for her to stay at the dorms rather than having them drive all the way into the city every day just to drop her off for school, and then pick her up in the afternoon?

The longer they drove, the more questions Anthea had, and she wasn't sure if she should ask them or not.

Her social worker seemed to pick up on her anxiety and questions and assured her they were almost there, that things would probably make a little more sense once they arrived.

Then they pulled up to a gate, which opened as the car pulled up and Anthea's jaw dropped.

"Wait, wait, wait." She started, turning to the social worker even as they pulled up to the doors of the house - if it could even be called that. "This is Wayne Manor, isn't it?"

"It is," her social worker said, beginning to smile.

"You're telling me _Bruce Wayne_ wants to foster me?" What even was her life? First _Batman_ solves her fathers murder, and now Bruce Wayne, richest man in Gotham and father of _five_, wanted to foster her? She had to be dreaming.

"I can assure you you're not dreaming." Her social worker turned the car off - Anthea noticed the door open from the corner of her eye, but no one made an attempt to approach the car. "I'll admit I'm a little surprised, but Mr. Wayne said your father was a friend as well as one of his employees. He's just sorry you had to move into the dorms at the school short term while the paperwork was done."

Wait, what? Her father had never mentioned actually knowing Bruce Wayne. He _definitely_ would have brought that up if it was true. Which meant... what, exactly? Bruce Wayne lied about it to make it easier to foster her? Why would he do that?

Her social worker moved to get out of the car, so Anthea followed, walking a few steps behind.

An elderly man opened the door further and she couldn't help the quiet "wow," that escaped her lips when she walked into the manor.

Wayne Manor was huge, but it also wasn't in your face about the fact that it was owned by one of the richest men in the world. From what she could see from having just walked in, it was very... classic. Everything looked expensive, but in a way that said it was of the highest quality, not that it was flashy.

Her social worker greeted the old man, before turning to her.

"Mr. Pennyworth, this is Anthea Lin." She ducked her head in greeting, trying to be subtle in her looking around. It didn't seem to be working.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Anthea. My name is Alfred Pennyworth. I am the Wayne family's butler."

"Among other things. Alfred is family." She looked up as another voice joined them, barely registering the social worker greeting the newcomer.

Bruce Wayne was _tall_, was the first thing Anthea noticed. He was dressed fairly casually as well, and it certainly made her feel a little more relaxed. She's not sure how she would've reacted if he'd shown up in a full suit.

"It's wonderful to meet you, Anthea." Mr. Wayne said. "Your father spoke of you fondly." He didn't tell her 'sorry for your loss,' and she appreciated that. She'd heard it too many times over the last two weeks.

"It's nice to meet you as well, Mr. Wayne, Mr Pennyworth." The two men exchanged a look before Mr. Wayne smiled at her.

"Please, just Bruce is fine." Mr. Pennyworth - no, Alfred - repeated the sentiment, and then Anthea was being swept further into the manor by Bruce, given an impromptu tour and shown her room while Alfred and her social worker brought her things in.

She was shown where the guest rooms were, and was surprised when Bruce kept going, passing a half a dozen rooms (god, the manor was _huge_) before coming to the wing she was told housed the families bedrooms. Her room was next to Cassandra's, which was next to Bruce's, apparently. The boys (Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian) bedrooms were across the hall.

When she opened the door to her new room, she had to try not to openly gape. The bedroom wasn't massive in the way that some of her classmates speculated the bedrooms at Wayne Manor would be, but it was still big. It was sparsely decorated but with all the essentials - a large four poster bed with a side table beside it. A desk and chair that reminded her of things you'd see in someone's office or study, not a bedroom. There was a good sized closest, chest of drawers and a full length mirror near a door that seemed to lead into an on-suite washroom. A bookshelf and painting above the desk rounded out what was in the room.

"If there's anything for your room that you want or need, just let Alfred or myself know. Alfred would be more than happy to take you shopping for anything that might make you more comfortable or make the manor feel more like home." Bruce was saying while Anthea wandered around the room, familiarizing herself with it.

It was... a lot. The apartment she and her father had lived in was small, maybe even a little too small, and it felt like it wasn't an exaggeration to say that this bedroom was the size of the entire apartment. And Bruce was offering to just buy her anything she needed or wanted? He was very, very rich so she supposed that made sense but still.

She was about to say it was more than okay, that she couldn't think of anything now but if she did she'd mention it (probably) when Alfred lead her social worker and a dark haired boy that Anthea recognized as Tim Drake-Wayne into the room, bringing her things along (she really didn't have that much. Some of the stuff from the apartment had been put into storage because she'd been moving into a dorm and there wasn't room for things like furniture that she'd probably just sell or donate anyway.)

Bruce looked over to the door with a grin, and Anthea walked a little closer. "Ah, perfect timing. Anthea, this is Tim. Tim, Anthea."

Tim put down the box he'd carried into the room and held his hand out for Anthea to shake, which she did. "Nice to meet you." He said, "I apologize in advance for my idiot brothers." That got a little laugh out of her, which seemed to please both Tim and Bruce - and her social worker, who took Bruce and excused them from the room. Tim looked over his shoulder, shaking his head a little when it was obvious Bruce didn't want to leave Anthea alone just yet. "We'll be fine. I can give her a proper tour of the manor, if you want?" Tim looked to her when he offered, which surprised her a little, but she nodded. A proper tour would be nice, although she suspected she'd be getting lost for quite some time no matter what.

"Sounds good." She agreed, and Tim smiled. It seemed to put Bruce at ease, so he left, though not before telling them (mostly her, she assumed) to just find him or Alfred if they needed anything.

That made Tim laugh a little, waving him off. "We're the same age, right? There's just enough of an age difference between Jason, Cass and I for it to be annoying - well, for them to hold it over me. It'll be nice to have someone my age around," Anthea slowly nodded, her mouth forming a little 'o'.

"Oh, we are the same age." Every one in Gotham knew about the Wayne kids, but it had never really occurred to her that she was the same age as Tim Drake-Wayne - she was a couple of months younger, if she wasn't mistaken.

Tim was easy enough to talk to as he showed her around the manor - she didn't do much talking admittedly, too busy trying to memorize the layout of the place she would call home (at least for now) but Tim was one of those people Anthea felt comfortable around immediately. He made her laugh with some the stories about the older boys - namely Dick, she noticed. Mostly stories he'd been told about Dick hanging off of chandeliers and sliding down railings, things like that.

"Don't mind Damian too much," Tim told her, as they made a loop around towards the kitchen. "He's getting better, but he doesn't like Bruce having to pay attention to other people." Anthea nodded slowly.

While a lot of her classmates liked to pay attention to the Wayne family, Gotham's most influential family and local celebrities, Anthea never really paid much attention, didn't really care that much about celebrity news. She knew the names of the Wayne boys, remembered hearing when Bruce Wayne adopted them - though Dick Grayson was adopted shortly after Anthea and her father moved to Gotham, so she remembered that less than she did the others. She remembered hearing her dad talk about it, remembered him saying that Bruce Wayne was a good man for taking in the orphaned kid, no matter what anyone said about him.

That's what she always thought about him - but it felt really weird to be one of those orphaned kids he'd taken in, even if she's just a foster kid.

She knows the basic facts about the Wayne family but she doesn't know about them. From what she remembers her classmates saying, Damian Wayne was very abrasive and straightforward, never mincing his words.

Tim must have noticed the look on her face and laughed a little. "He can be a lot at first, but you get used to him after a while. Mostly at least." Anthea nodded again, but laughed a little too. "If he says anything rude, just make sure you let one of us know, if no one else is around to hear it. He doesn't really listen to me but Bruce and Dick are trying to get after him more often, so he gets he can't just say whatever he wants if it's rude."

"Can do." Anthea said. She was sure she could - she wasn't very good at hiding when she was upset anyway, so she was pretty sure if Damian did say something to her that upset her, someone would figure it out pretty quickly.

"It's a lot, right?" Anthea just nodded, still looking around as they walked.

"It's always just been me and my father." She shrugged. "My mother died when I was a baby, and the rest of my family is back in China, but I don't... know them? They never came to visit, and from the way baba talked about them, they hated that baba and I moved here." Which... okay, kind of fair? People from outside of Gotham always talked shit about the city, and Anthea could understand some of it, because it was... not great in a lot of ways, but it was still home, for her and a lot of other people. Plus it was better than it had used to be, apparently - Batman had been around since before Anthea had moved there, so she had always known Gotham as the city with a vigilante looking over it. Batman had always been the Gotham's guardian angel - or that's how she thought of it at least.

Tim nods. "I get that. It was a lot when I moved in and it was just Bruce and Alfred then - Dick wasn't living here full time when Bruce took me in. I can't imagine having to get used to everyone all at once." They walked past the kitchen, Tim popping in long enough to greet Alfred and tell him that she was with him and kept going. She was pretty sure they we're getting back around to the bedrooms, but she was honestly not sure.

"It'll take a while to get used to them, that's for sure." At least Tim was easy to talk to.

"Damian and I are the ones around the house most often," Tim admitted. "Dick has work, while Cass and Jason are both in university and have more of a social life than I do. Alfred likes us to all be home for dinner, but there's usually a few nights where one or more of us aren't in. We try to make Sunday dinners, if nothing else." He paused then, like he was trying to figure out how to word what he was thinking. "I bet anything Bruce will have to tell everyone to behave a half a dozen times so we don't scare you."

That made Anthea laugh again, to her own surprise. It almost seemed to surprise Tim as well, but then he smiled and moved on.

"They all know Bruce wanted to foster you, but I don't know if they know you were moving in today, so Alfie will probably make sure they're all in tonight, but expect them to be surprised at you being here." Then he lapsed into what she can only describe as a tour guide voice and started talking about the paintings on the wall or the rooms as they walk past them, the history of Wayne Manor and she's not sure if he's being truthful or not, but it makes her laugh, properly, more than just a little giggle.

She feels happier than she has since she came home to find her father bleeding out in their apartment.


End file.
